Victoria Bitter: The Jaidyn Leskie Story

The Pig's Head Crew

Domaszewicz had no idea that he was being watched when he left his house that morning to pick up Bilynda at the bar. But he was. Kenny Penfold and Darrin Wilson, Yvonne Penfold's old flame, were hiding in the brush near the railroad tracks with a pig's head and an axe handle, Deano "Dum-Dum" Ross was nearby and Yvonne was handling the getaway car as they waited to take their revenge for Domaszewicz' mistreatment of Yvonne. They had no idea, they claimed, that the child was there, nor did they ever hear a baby scream. They also said they had no idea that Domaszewicz would be heading out of his house, dropping the blood-soaked tissues he had used to treat Jaidyn after the alleged mishap with the dogs, but as soon as he got in his car and drove away, they launched into their attack.

Authorities would later say it seemed to take them several tries to finally send the pig's head through the front window, but when they finished their rampage, the window was shattered and the front room was littered with glass. Investigators would later insist that there was no sign that any of the pig's head crew entered the house that night. There was no sign of forced entry through the doors and the only way they could have entered, police surmised, was to have climbed through the broken glass. Of course, there are still some who speculate that perhaps the attackers had a key, though no serious testimony about such a key was ever entered at trial.

Once the "bizzo" as they called it was done, the rampagers fled, but not before taking a moment to throw a couple of stones in a burst of Moe-ish élan at a pair of young men who happened to be walking by on their way home from a night of drinking, young men who were later able to place the Pig's Head Crew at the scene.

It was sometime after 3 a.m., though no one can really say for certain, when Domaszewicz and Bilynda Murphy made it back to Grishka's vandalized house. Bilynda was still in a deep drunken haze, and Grishka was still maintaining to the confused woman that Jaidyn had been hospitalized. By his own account, he was in a panic. Jaidyn was missing. He claims he searched from room to room, and discovered not only that Jaidyn was missing but that the evidence he had collected, as insurance against the police, was also gone, says author Robin Bowles. He was convinced, he later told anyone who would listen that Yvonne and the Penfold clan were behind it.

Jaidyn's room, July 14, 1998

Still, he didn't let on to Bilynda that anything might have happened to Jaidyn. He drove his girlfriend home, let her fall asleep on the floor, and then drove past the Penfold house, he said. The lights were on, but he didn't go inside. Instead, he said, he made an angry phone call. "Is this one of your sick jokes?" he demanded. He never mentioned the missing child. Yvonne Penfold simply hung up.

It will perhaps always be a source of debate among those who have followed the case: Why did Domaszewicz wait to report the child missing? Even when he was pulled over by a police van at 3:33 am while driving around after dropping off Bilynda, Domaszewicz mentioned nothing about Jaidyn's disappearance, authorities would later testify.

It wasn't until the next morning, when a tearful Domaszewicz roused the still groggy Bilynda and told her Jaidyn had been kidnapped and they had to tell police, that word of the tragedy finally leaked out. Even then, as Bilynda listened to Grishka's story, she didn't believe him.

"He's a dickhead," she told police officers, referring to her boyfriend. She insisted that Jaidyn was still in the hospital. It wasn't until she saw the story about Jaidyn's disappearance on the television news that it began to sink in.